


L'amor Mi Prende

by cristianoronaldo



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: AU, M/M, art au idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-21
Updated: 2014-02-21
Packaged: 2018-01-13 06:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1215694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cristianoronaldo/pseuds/cristianoronaldo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Torres models a bit. Juan is a photographer. Llorente is an art student.</p>
            </blockquote>





	L'amor Mi Prende

**Author's Note:**

> title notes at the end 
> 
> this fic is purposely vague. if you have any questions or want to know specifics behind characters/what happens later/what happened before/ what Juan's project was about, comment and let me know what you think it is, and I will tell you!

It all started over the summer when Fernando was modeling for an art class. He wasn’t really a model, and he had to keep telling himself that because the ogling was getting to his head; he could feel his ego begin to swell when a girl dropped her pencil.

Just for money, he told himself, and he gave her a reassuring smile. Just for money. He was muttering it again to himself as he pulled up his jeans: “Just for money,” and the guy in front of him turned around:

“Hey, if you’re looking for some extra cash…” He trailed off, looking embarrassed at Fernando’s state of undress even though he’d been sketching perfectly calmly only moments before when Fernando was completely naked (not to mention absolutely freezing-- do art teachers factor in what happens to nipples when they refuse to turn on the heat in New York in the middle of winter? Freezing to death wasn’t part of the creative process, but that was just according to Fernando, and what did he know about art anyway).

He perked up at the half-proposition. “What’s that?”

The guy scratched his nose. He had golden curls falling all over the place, these piercing eyes that could cut your soul in two, massive hands that made you want to watch him paint-- among other things. “Well my friend’s a photographer, and he’s been looking for a model.” He bit his lip. “And, see, you’ve got this face.”

“I’ve got a face?” He didn’t mean for it to come out as a question, but he was feeling rather exposed with his jeans unzipped and his shirt on the ground.

“I mean.” The other man stopped again, ran a hand through his curls like he knew it would get Fernando’s attention. “I’m Fernando,” he said sticking out his hand. “Uh, everyone just calls me Llorente though. It feels more creative, I dunno.”

Fernando was hardly interested in hearing why this other Fernando was going by “Llorente”-- whatever that meant-- but he was interested in prolonging their time together, purely on account of his physical attributes. “That’s funny,” he said without laughing. “We’re both named Fernando.”

“Yeah.” Llorente looked uncomfortable, like he was trying to swallow and inhale at the same time. “Anyway, my buddy, he has this photography thing going, and he’s looking for, I dunno, thoughtful faces, or something like it. He’s really good at what he does, and he was looking for a…” He seemed to realize he was talking in circles. He hesitated with his hand motionless, hanging in midair. “Uh.” He lost his train of thought.

Beautiful idiots were Fernando’s favorite though, so he smiled pleasantly and asked for his friend’s information, thanked Llorente for his offer, and ended with a polite inquiry as to whether Llorente was walking the same way he was.

“Yeah,” he said with excitement, or with as much excitement as he could offer which, granted, wasn’t much. Fernando thought he was rather dull, like a rare necklace that was beautiful in its time but dust had rotted the inside. Lying on velvet, it was beautiful. It shone. When closely examined, the shine was a dull gleam and, when picked up, it fell to pieces.

“Looks like we’re neighbors,” Fernando said. He finished getting dressed and when he strolled out the door, he didn’t check to see if Llorente was following. Fernando recognized the look in his eyes; he was already half-sick with love.

+

When Fernando met Juan, the photographer, he was a little bit disgusted. Juan was slouching in the back of a coffee shop with a purple beanie, brown pants, and a green sweater. The combination on its own wasn’t enough to make Fernando want to turn around and leave, but everything-- his clothing, his hair, the bag slung over the chair opposite him-- was in such a state of disrepair that Fernando had to check his phone to compare the picture with the real Juan Mata one more time.

He stopped in front of the table. “Hey,” he said blandly. “So am I going to work for you or not?”

Juan immediately scrambled to his feet, looking cheerful and distracted. “Yes, yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for doing this-- I really appreci-- oh, did you want some coffee-- you know, I was reading this article about how coffee is bad for you, but I just can’t seem to-- I heard you can be addicted to coffee--”

Fernando sensed he could go on for hours like that, starting ten different conversations in one long breath and getting absolutely nowhere. “I heard you can be addicted to a lot of things,” he cut in sharply. He picked up Juan’s back and set it gingerly on the floor with an expression like it might poison him.

Juan opened his mouth to reply, but something in Fernando’s expression made him snap his mouth shut before the words were born. “Right, so let’s get down to work, shall we?” He slapped the table with his hands like he was thrilled to start. “Do you mind if I ask a little about where you grew up, that kind of stuff? See, I’m writing a description about each of the mod--”

“Are you asking about my family? If we’re wealthy or not?”

Juan hesitated. “Well, yes, but--”

“Llorente told me what your project was about. I’m not just a brilliant guesser.” It was the closest Fernando was going to get to nice.

“I wasn’t sure how to ask it,” Juan explained. “It’s hard starting out with new models. Normally I’m working with clothing, see, I work with designers mostly and the models all know what they’re supposed to do, but now I’m drowning in all this new stuff to learn and I’ve got all these ideas about incorporating--”

“Right, right, politics. I got it the first time.”

“Yeah,” Juan said, softer this time. “Well, anyway…” His shoulders were slumping, the beanie drooping sadly. If Fernando possessed a wider range of emotions, he might have felt at least a little tug of sympathy, but he was sorely lacking in that department, so instead he prodded at the vague shape of his indifference and merely raised his eyebrows expectantly. “I just didn’t know how to ask it,” Juan clarified.

Examining his nails, Fernando settled back comfortably. “You could have just asked it, and I would have said no, but I used to be, and now I’m not, but I’d like to be again.” He propped his feet up on Juan’s mangled bag. It was the only part of his body he would allow to touch the dirty, smelly carcass of canvas.

That seemed to win Juan’s trust back. He had this humble smile, and it didn’t light up the room or anything like that, but it was nice, and if it did light up anything, it glowed with the gentle light of a single ray of sun, not a dozen and not thousands -- one powerful ray that was strong enough to pierce something inside Fernando, though he didn’t realize its potential yet.

“Well,” Juan said, and he took a small bite out of his chocolate croissant, “I can’t promise this will make you rich again, but I can promise…” He had a smudge of chocolate on his upper lip. He tried to lick it away and, thinking he succeeded, he stopped to think, but the chocolate spot remained. “Never mind,” he said finally, “I can’t actually promise anything.”

For the first time since sitting down, a genuine albeit small smile chiseled itself into life on Fernando’s lips.

+

Fernando was naked again, wrapped in sheets. A female model was draped in a separate sheet near the window. Juan was taking her picture over and over again, and the clicking was starting to drive Fernando insane, but every time he reached for his phone on the floor beside the bed, Juan would turn around and give him a reproachful look. He had crazy peripheral vision.

The woman at the window was blonde with pouty lips, and this killer smile that could knock a grown man to the ground. In heels, she looked like she could kill; barefoot and clad only in lace she was perhaps more dangerous, but only because of the sheer plain beauty that she radiated from every cell in her body.

When she stood at the window, Fernando imagined he could love her, but only because he had a weakness for beautiful things. He had a terrifying theory that was constantly cooking in the back of his mind that he wouldn’t fall for someone beautiful or safe or wealthy; he knew someday he would hurtle helplessly into the unknown. That would be his punishment for the depth and repetition of his sin

Finally the clicking ceased and Fernando fell back against the bed with a groan. The woman at the window let the sheet drop and, barefoot with her hair cascading in a waterfall of curls down her bare back, she waltzed over to her bag of clothes. She looked over her shoulder before bending over, making sure she had an audience.

“Juan,” she called in a voice like a song, “I thought you said you didn’t miss any good opportunities to take a photo. The shoot never ends.” And so Juan snapped a photo, and she stuck out her tongue with a laugh, and Fernando felt like he was a kid again because, in that laugh, there was sunshine and the childish feeling of a swimming pool with no bottom and the crashing back into reality after a dream about falling.

She slipped into her jeans, and her smile calmed down. She picked up her shirt, threw it over her head and raised an eyebrow like she was daring Juan to put his eye back to the camera and take one last shot of her, triumphant and glowing.

He took the shot, and she bowed a little before ducking out.

Juan stood with the camera in his hands, looking down at the sheet she had left on the ground. It was crumpled and something about the lonely sheet on the dusty carpet made Juan bend to his knees and snap a half a dozen photos with a look in his eyes that made Fernando believe, for the first time, that he was working for someone with such incredible passion for his work that it was likely to overwhelm him.

“She’s something, isn’t she?”

Fernando let his head fall back against the soft pillow, his eyes falling closed, eyelashes brushing his cheek. “Depends what kind of something you mean.”

Juan knelt on the bed and when Fernando opened his eyes, Juan was looking down at him with such a blindingly innocent, curious expression that Fernando stared back for a moment, confused, because no one had ever looked at him like that before, like he was a newborn creature full of possibility and wonder, not a sack of wasted potential or a glaring example of mediocrity. Juan took another photo, and Fernando knew his vulnerable moment had been immortalized. He told himself it was a good thing because it was the only vulnerable moment he was likely to have for a very long time.

“The kind of something you are,” Juan said at last.

“And what kind of something is that?” Fernando raised his chin defiantly, throwing up whatever shield he could manage in the form of arrogance and disrespect.

“I’m not sure yet.” Juan was behind the camera, and Fernando couldn’t see his eyes, but when he heard the click of the camera, he felt he could understand Juan better than when they were face to face. When his finger pressed down on the little black button that meant nothing to Fernando-- filled up Juan’s world with its brilliant nothingness-- he was an open book. When Fernando heard the click, felt the flash almost blind him, he knew that Juan saw something in that moment that was worth force-feeding the elixir of life, and the moment became colors and shading and raw emotion instead of a pinpoint in time that existed as one single point and a million points, staying in one place and existing for an eternity in the sub-moments that were born from it.

Juan did some adjusting, quietly asked Fernando to move around, and finally they were back at the window where the woman had stood before. Fernando didn’t want to compare himself to her, but leaning back against the window with the breeze at his back and the sheet around his waist, he felt like the god to her goddess, and Juan was their creator, twisted by his own brilliance, hands dirtied with the clay that gave those two human’s their artistic existence.

“What does this have to do with the theme of your project?” Fernando asked finally, because he needed to hear himself speak, just to make sure his voice was still steady and arrogant and commanding.

Juan didn’t answer. He conversed in a funny way; the conversation became his. If they were talking about something he didn’t want to talk about, he strangled the topic with his words and, conquering it, rode on victorious to talk about what was truly on his mind.

“The funny thing about you, Fernando,” Juan said, splaying his hand against Fernando’s bare shoulder to press him back into the wall, “...is that you don’t understand your own emotions until they’re presented to you. What you think you are is only a fraction of what you truly are.”

Fernando rolled his eyes, and he felt the camera capture that too.

“I know what you see. You think I walk around like some hippie freakshow. You think I sneak out at breaks to smoke pot and scribble in my diary about how beautiful I think the leaves on the ground are.”

He was still moving around Fernando, adjusting him and moving the sheet down dangerously far. His eyes were lighting up with a passion past his work and into something deeper. He seemed crazy, on fire, and Fernando was breathless watching him work.

Juan licked his lips. He was concentrating on Fernando’s hand. “But I know that you see my truth too. You look at me like I’m beneath you, but some part of you understands where I’m coming from and what I am, and what this project is about too. Some part of you must have a little sympathy.”

Sometimes when bad things befell Fernando, which luckily for him was rarely, he got this dead look in his eyes, and he felt like he was being trampled in the freezing cold. If he was asked to describe that feeling and that look, he wouldn’t have been able to, but Juan would have, in perfect detail, been able to talk of the creases of Fernando’s forehead and the small downward tilt of his mouth and the way his eyes seemed to lose their fire. He was remembering something, and the memories were cascading down faster than he could prepare for their weight.

When Juan took his final photo, Fernando could tell. There was a finality in Juan’s stance that made Fernando move from his position on the bed to a more comfortable seated position on the chair next to it. He covered himself with the sheet and grumbled something about it being freezing cold.

“I’m finished, so I guess you’re free to go, unless you want to stay for dinner. I’m making spaghetti and meatballs, and it’s always pretty good, so.” It was obvious to both of them that Fernando wanted to stay, but he shook his head, dressed quickly, and left before he or Juan could mention their conversation from earlier.

Walking home, Fernando felt like a hole had been punched clean through his chest. He thought of Juan and his eyes. He couldn’t even remember what color they were, but he remembered that look and how, together, they were spellbound by the goddess framed by the window.

He saw Llorente taking out the trash when he got home. He waved uncomfortably, and Llorente asked about the shoot. “Was it any good?”

Fernando considered the question. “I dunno. We’ll see.”

+

The next time he saw Juan, they were back to their god and goddess theme only this time Fernando was standing in front of the shower and letting the steam cover him. The girl, Alex, didn’t like him very much, and he grew to hate her accent and the look she gave him every time they crossed paths, but he admired her beauty. And every time he looked at her, he felt Juan’s eyes on him, judging him thoroughly for appreciating solely the beauty of her flesh.

“I need you to stand still, Fernando,” Juan was muttering around his chewing gum. It was always cinnamon, never peppermint and sometimes he chewed it while he was about to fall asleep. He woke up choking one time because he forgot to stop.

Fernando had to eavesdrop for that story. Juan and Alex spoke about meaningless things, but it was nice to hear their trivial conversation. Fernando hadn’t involved himself in anything quite so trivial since he was a child, and he missed it. He missed being able to run through a puddle simply because he wanted to and not because it would make him money or make him look good or make his parents proud of him again. Despite this revelation, he remained quiet and out of reach. He was as aloof and mysterious to Juan as ever, and they connected only through the lens of Juan’s camera.

Fernando stood as still as a statue while Juan explored his body with the camera. Fernando shut his eyes, but he was tense, leaning against the wall like he was tied, ready to be burned at the damn stake. His hands were clutching desperately at the wall, slipping on the slick surface because of the steam of the shower.

Alex was already in the shower, the water running down her smooth back like a blanket of liquid, kissing her every curve. Juan switched back and forth between getting shots of Alex’s lithe body writhing in the steam of the shower and Fernando’s stiff form.

“Loosen up, would you?” Juan leaned forward to rest his hands on Fernando’s shoulders. “I can’t deal with you this tense, okay? It’s not working.” His thumb moved in small circles on Fernando’s back until the other man gave in, relaxing against the wall a bit more. “You’re supposed to be a paper angel,” Juan told him. “And right now you look like you’re made out of plastic.”

“Plastic bends,” Fernando mumbled unhappily, sounding more like a petulant toddler than a grown man posing nude for the sake of art.

Juan checked over his shoulder. Alex was turned the other way, shampoo running down her back. She was singing softly. He leaned forward to move Fernando’s head. “So bend,” he murmured, his lips grazing the other man’s arm, and later that night, when Fernando went home, he saw Llorente and the two of them ended up having dinner and Llorente stayed over because Fernando kissed him and fucked him, and then it was the morning after, and Fernando was still hearing “so bend’ echoing in his ears.

After that night, Llorente stayed over more and more often. He seemed to be under the impression that he and Fernando were dating, and Fernando was fine letting him think that way because the other man often came “home” with trinkets or information from class. Normally Fernando didn’t find any of it very interesting but just when he was thinking about kicking Llorente to the curb, he would mention something about Juan, and Fernando had to think for a minute because the two of them -- Llorente and Juan -- were friends, and he told himself that he didn’t want the drama, and that was why he wasn’t ending it with Llorente, not because he was greedy and selfish and cruel. Those were independently true.

The next time he worked with Juan was on the same project two weeks later. He was draped in gold this time with a crown of green leaves on his head. He was lounging against what was meant to be a throne. It wasn’t very beautiful though and it was hard to sit on; Fernando told Juan so, and he smiled, replied, “Yeah, that’s sort of the point.”

Alex was next to him in a long gold dress. This time Juan didn’t have her smile or pose. She glared down from the throne like a queen about to strike down an entire nation. “I will do what queens do best,” she said in a voice that made Fernando roll his eyes. “Conquer.”

“She’s an actress,” Juan said as he was leaning forward to adjust Fernando’s “toga”-- they were drapes, he wanted to yell.

“That explains a lot.”

Juan frowned. “She said the same thing when I told her who your father is.”

Fernando paled. “How did you--”

“Google,” he said simply, pulling Fernando’s toga down on one side. “And you might want to take care of that rash.”

“It’s a mosquito bite,” Fernando snapped, and he scratched at it insistently as he watched Juan turn to Alex for a more pleasant conversation.

Later that night, when the shoot was done and Alex had gone home, Fernando was leaning against the wall in the kitchen, waiting for Juan to send his team and assistants home. He started playing with the stove until he heard footsteps behind him.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Juan told him.

Fernando turned on him viciously. “You motherfucker.”

Juan was calm, his fingers thin and delicate as he plucked a berry from the fruit basket on his too-round kitchen table. His eyes were bright and Fernando remembered vividly the look Juan had given him that had shaken him up so much. It was the only time Fernando had ever wanted to be shaken up again.

“What have I done, Fernando?”

“Mentioning my father like that.” He gestured angrily and a second basket of fruit on the counter fell to the ground. An apple rolled near his foot, and he kicked at it roughly, sending it bouncing over to the refrigerator. “Telling fucking Alex about him. It was none of your goddamn business talking about him or talking about me or talking about anyone in my family. Just because I come from more than you do doesn’t mean I’m some -- some spoiled rich kid.”

“No,” Juan agreed quietly, rolling the stem of the grape between his thumb and his forefinger. “I agree you’re not just some spoiled rich kid, yet you do such a great impression of one.”

“Motherfucker,” Fernando said again, this time with less venom because no one had ever taken the time to look beneath the surface and understand that Fernando was anything but the face he showed the world. Where he showed arrogance, he really felt insecurity; when he showed happiness at another’s misfortune, he felt sympathy; when he claimed indifference, something was stirring within him that he was struggling to contain, some great human mystery that he had yet to explore.

“Yes,” Juan agreed, offering the bowl of fruit to Fernando. He vehemently denied it. “I’m horrible, I know. I’m horrible for trying to defend you because I see something in you that you probably don’t even see in yourself. I’m sorry for trying to explain your background to Alex instead of letting her find out and judge on her own.”

Fernando was only still fuming because he was stubborn. He glared at the bowl of fruit instead of Juan himself because it was difficult to hate the one person who didn’t treat him like he was better than anyone else and didn’t treat him like he was worse; he just treated Fernando like he was human.

“I’m sorry for knowing you,” Juan said finally, and he understood Fernando’s split-open expression for what it was, so he pointed to his office. “Want to see the photos from the other day?”

Fernando nodded silently, and they spent the rest of the night locked in Juan’s office, examining the photos carefully. There was one shot of Fernando staring at the camera like he was staring down the barrel of a gun, and he would have looked downright terrifying if it weren’t for the freckles.

“Can’t you edit those out?”

“I could.”

“But you won’t?”

“I won’t.”

Every shot of Fernando was beautiful and Juan captured his sadness, his strength, his weakness, his exhaustion, but after comparing his own photos to those of Alex’s, he noted that the one emotion Juan couldn’t seem to immortalize was joy.

“I’m not smiling in any of these. You have tons of her smiling.” Fernando walked to the other end of the table, peering over them all closely. “But I’m not smiling in a single one.”

“You’re smirking in this one.” Juan picked it up and held it in his hands, reverently, like he was holding the Mona Lisa.

“People don’t smirk,” Fernando scoffed, bending over to take a look. “That’s just for books.” Juan shoved the picture right under his nose, and Fernando scowled, inched away after a moment. “I might be smirking a little.”

Juan set the picture down again. He moved away from the table in search of his purple beanie, and Fernando watched him walk around the room making grabby fists with his hands.

“Why am I not smiling in any of them?”

“Hate to break it to you, but you don’t smile very often.”

“I smile enough.” But he was scowling again, remembering his childhood and how he used to laugh too much, and then his father had heard about it--heard because he wasn’t around to see-- and that was the first day Fernando tasted the leather of a belt and the last day he smiled for no reason. (“Composure,” his father told him, “That is what makes a good businessman.”)

“No,” Juan said, giving up his search and approaching Fernando like he could see and understand his memories. “Someone with a smile like yours never smiles enough.”

“Have you even seen me smile?”

“I dunno.” He shrugged like the question had nothing to do with the conversation anyway; he checked for his beanie one last time underneath the chair. “I think I have.”

Fernando picked at a nail. He didn’t really care about the conversation; he was just curious-- or at least that’s what he told himself. “Then how do you know I don’t smile enough? Maybe I’m hiding awful teeth or weird dimples.”

“Awful teeth, weird dimples, and all…” He trailed off. He was a firm believer in the beauty of silence.

Fernando stared at Juan's lips, and later, when he was walking home, he imagined he could feel them count the freckles along his collarbone. When he stared in the mirror that night, his fingers grazed the freckles, then his lips, and when he felt the beginnings of a smile, he let it grow.

**Author's Note:**

> first of all, i'm really sorry this is my first upload in forever. i'm going to get around to answering all your lovely comments on my other works and I appreciate every single one! 
> 
> title notes:  
> the title comes from this-- 
> 
> l'amor mi prende e la beltà mi lega;  
> la pietà, la mercè con dolci sguardi  
> ferma speranz' al cor par che ne doni.
> 
> Michelangelo wrote it for his lover and it translates to 
> 
> Love takes me captive; beauty binds my soul;  
> Pity and mercy with their gentle eyes  
> Wake in my heart a hope that cannot cheat 
> 
> again, if you want anything clarified, just shoot me a comment or a message (tumblr user illarras) or a tweet (@sanikersaves) or a kik!! or a whatsapp! if you ever want me to read a fic over for you or you just want a beta, etc, let me know because I need to improve my editing skills (obviously--as always, point out typos).


End file.
